What You Really Need For A Happy Life

What if we stopped striving for bigger and better, and started working on stronger and happier? Aaron Traister discovered that not having a lot of money or stuff might actually let us in on the secret to a rich and fulfilling future.

CHRISSY IS SITTING AT MY KITCHEN TABLE while our kids play upstairs. She had a work thing that conflicted with school pickup, so I brought her 7-year-old daughter, Alex, home with us. Before Chrissy got to my place, she went to get her baby, Jake, from another mom who watches him on the days Chrissy goes into the office. We’ve known each other for a while—our daughters are best friends—and when we’re tired, we fall into a pattern of commiserating about our financial woes. She tells me that she’s crunched the numbers and realized her family won’t be able to buy a house for another year or two. “Which means more renting,” she says irritably. I tell her that home ownership is overrated and explain that my family is currently living in the shadow of the 20-year-old furnace we’ve been promised will die on us at any minute. Every time we think about paying for a new one, broken arms and braces get in the way. So for the past two years, my wife and

I have settled for taking a deep breath in October and waiting to exhale until sometime after the flowers start blooming. Chrissy envies that I own my home, and I envy that her landlord is the one holding his breath until May.

Then Chrissy says, “But this is the choice we’ve made. I’d rather just worry about money than have to worry about everything else.” Her family is happy. They have dinner together almost every night, and she has people she can count on to help her out on days life is tricky. “I wouldn’t trade those things if it meant we could move into our own house tomorrow,” she says. “And besides, no matter how much money you have, you always worry about how much money you have.”